Preparation
by Unfocused Shot
Summary: When she finally pushed herself too hard, Arthur had felt that perhaps he was partially to blame.


1.

When she finally pushed herself too hard, Arthur had felt that perhaps he was partially to blame. She was eager to learn, create and to prove herself and perhaps had decided that matching her pace to his relentless energy was how she was going to keep up. However, he attacked tasks with a cool collection that was beyond her exuberance and he didn't expect that of her.

He'd prefer she kept herself just as she was rather than mimicking him.

He led her from the chair towards the cot they kept just in case. He'd placed a firm arm around her shoulder and another to her waist as he steered her towards the corner of the warehouse.

Her hand shot up to her mouth to stifle a yawn and he reminded her to stop pushing herself. That the levels that she was designing were beautiful and she was doing well.

She just looked up and raised a sleepy eyebrow.

"I want to push," she replied.

He sighed, sat her down on the cot and told her that some things in life need to be balanced.

2.

Arthur considered briefly murdering Eames when the man declared that someday, he was going to bed Ariadne.

"Now look at her, perfectly lovely thing isn't she?" he continued, looking at Ariadne across the room and not catching the annoyed look that had etched itself onto Arthur's face. He looked up almost involuntarily from his paperwork at let his eyes rest on the architect working across the room.

And she was lovely looking. She'd come to the office that day looking and feeling excited and accomplished. She'd held bundles of maps and materials that were now splayed over her workstation; changing details of levels, going back over details and occasionally scraping entire levels to begin again. She looked radiant in her task.

"I bet if she's that dedicated at levels she'd be even more enthusiastic if she was doing something fun."

Arthur reminded himself that she had standards as well as intellect.

3.

Staring up at her ceiling, Ariadne told herself that she just needed to relax in order to fall asleep. It was the first night she was sleeping in her own bed since she and Arthur had made it habit to fall asleep on the cot. It had started out as them taking turns, one resting while the other pushed relentlessly towards some semblance of preparedness.

She would dream, create and destroy while he would search and collect relentlessly. It became clear fairly quickly that they were more efficient if they took short naps between tasks. One would sleep while the other would go out and get lunch or dinner and then wake the other upon arrival. It was a system that was working well and overall had only raised Cobb's eyebrows. He believed she needed to go home once in a while, to remember that there was at least one thing outside of this.

She wasn't sure who led who to the cot one night. Both dragged their feet and collapsed nearly simultaneously. She woke the next morning, having tangled her limbs around him, to his bemused expression. His shirt was rumpled and she could see that at some point before collapse he'd laid his jacket and tie over a chair close by. She was no longer wearing her socks.

"Hey," she murmured softly. He replied in kind.

It had all come to a careening halt when at dinner Eames had commented on the state of the cot.

"You know you both have rooms right? Not that I mind you love birds shacking up here, it's just you should do it less on company time."

Arthur had returned to his hotel room before Ariadne had a chance to speak with him.

Lying here in her own bed, she wondered what Arthur was dreaming about.

4.

The heat wave was unfair. It had appeared almost without warning and had made it difficult for the team to do anything of value.

Ariadne was wearing less than she would have liked to have been, settling on a tank top she found too thin and a pair of shorts she thought were too short. Both clung to her despite her best efforts to remain by the fan.

His suit didn't even look wilted from the heat. She reached for her totem to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

5.

Arthur was learning that waking up beside Ariadne was a challenge of nearly Olympic proportions. Firstly she was too warm to initially leave. It radiated softly from her and he was hard pressed to move away from it upon waking.

Secondly, at some point in the night she would have tangled herself with him. Her legs twisting with his own, face pressed against his chest and hand splayed against his collarbone. His own hand would have found the curve of her waist or would have tangled itself in her hair, pressing her against him.

Thirdly, she looked nearly angelic while resting and he couldn't help but be captivated with the curve of her face or the way that her hair had become rumpled in sleep. He had found that he couldn't help but look at her upon waking from both real sleep and induced sleep. Always being the one to wake first, he searched for her nearly immediately, drinking in the way she stirred gently from sleep.

Disturbing her felt like sin.

He was sure that if Cobb was aware of anything outside of his own drama he wouldn't approve of this. He'd tell Arthur that forming anything (even if this was nothing) right before a mission was dangerous. That he would be distracting himself with her instead of focusing on the task of collecting information. That in a fight he'd be hyper-aware of her safety as opposed to his own. That they would end up like Cobb and Mal.

Arthur sighed.

6.

Cobb was trying to be the best mentor he could be to the girl, but she was becoming increasingly difficult to predict. Or rather, he had failed to predict that her inquisitive nature would span farther than just level creation. He should have expected her to follow him, to push and threaten his privacy, to discover and learn and then try to alter.

He frightened her perhaps.

Mal certainly frightened the girl.

She drew further away from him and closer to his point man.

Perhaps, Cobb thought, she'd discovered his secrets and they frightened her less than Cobb's did.


End file.
